Marc G. Fournier has launched a new project with the intention to show hardware vendors that there in fact are a lot of BSD users out there. "We are trying to demonstrate to hardware and software vendors out there that BSD should be viewed as a serious operating system, not just as a hobbyist system, for support (i.e. hardware drivers) purposes."

The linux counter should do something similar. Actually the linux counter should be initiated by the distros, be in the form of a similar script. Linux like BSD needs actual usage numbers for lobbying purposes.